Trip to Mexico
This came in via email and we decided that it was worth sharing –
Dear President Bush:
I’m about to plan a little trip with my family and extended family, and I would like to ask you to assist me. I’m going to walk across the border from the U.S. into Mexico, and I need to make a few arrangements. I know you can help with this.
I plan to skip all the legal stuff like visas, passports, immigration quotas and laws. I’m sure they handle those things the same way you do here.
So, would you mind telling your buddy, President Vicente Fox, that I’m on my way over? Please let him know that I will be expecting the following:
1. Free medical care for my entire family.
2. English-speaking government bureaucrats for all services I might need, whether I use them or not.
3. All government forms need to be printed in English.
4. I want my kids to be taught by English-speaking teachers.
5. Schools need to include classes on American culture and history.
6. I want my kids to see the American flag flying on the top of the flag pole at their school with the Mexican flag flying lower down.
7. Please plan to feed my kids at school for both breakfast and lunch.
8. I will need a local Mexican driver’s license so I can get easy access to government services.
9. I do not plan to have any car insurance, and I won’t make any effort to learn local traffic laws.
10. In case one of the Mexican police officers does not get the memo from Pres. Fox to leave me alone, please be sure that all police officers speak English.
11. I plan to fly the U.S. flag from my house top, put flag decals on my car, and have a gigantic celebration on July 4th. I do not want any complaints or negative comments from the locals.
12. I would also like to have a nice job without paying any taxes, and don’t enforce any labor laws or tax laws.
13. Please tell all the people in the country to be extremely nice and never say a critical word about me, or about the strain I might place on the economy.
14. Eventually I want to be able to vote and have all election materials and notices sent to me in English with Spanish as a second language..
I know this is an easy request because you already do all these things for all the people who come to the U.S. from Mexico.
I am sure that Pres. Fox won’t mind returning the favor if you ask him nicely. However, if he gives you any trouble, just invite him to go quail hunting with your V.P.
Weeelll, that’s pretty nasty all right. Not that some some people don’t deserve to be forced to read it right on through. You’re right, there’s a double standard. Lots of Gringos in Mexico, of course, probably catered to (they have money and are mostly elderly and gratious). ‘Course don’t vote, or use many government services in Mexico. It’s all unbalanced, and in each country, a whole different thing.
By the way, I’ve been to Mexico, oh, 50-75 times. This while speaking about three words of Espanol. It seems to me that us Gringos and them thar Mexicans, when it comes down to serious topics, speak right past each other. Which is a kind of serious Int’l problemo. (Ok, that’s one Espanol word)(it’s also Russian).
And Immigration, the illegal type, is what sticks in the craw of many Americans. I should like to inform my Mexican neighbors about that. There’s also the other stuff: Mexican intellectuals have had a stomach ache about that war (”Of North American Aggression”) that your country lost, oh, 150+ years ago. Mexico had then some poor generalship, crackpot presidents, and other disabilities. To be still angry about that so many years later, is puzzling. As usual in human history, when you lose wars badly, you lose territory, plus other insulting results. Live with it, that’s my advice.
Or better, forget it.
Then again for your ‘El Norte’ brothers to march with Mexican flags in the USA, with posters about how the USA ’stole’ nothern Mexico, while in a “we wanna be American citizenship” parade, or that ‘we are all immigrants’ (Duh!), or that a batch of 16 year old illegals claim to have ‘built’ America??? I beg your pardon!!!
It’s not just that it’s not polite, the important thing is that it makes no sense, and it’s political dynamite – up here. Like me insisting in Mexico that everyone speak English. Dumb idiot stuff.
There are, among us gringos, latinos descended over 400 years in this nothern place. Look up the names of those who fought and died at that famous Alamo battle. Quite a few Spaniard names aren’t there. Some things going on there that you do not learn in your schools – but I did in mine.
I’ve liked Mexico and it’s hospitable people during my visits. Look forward to next time. I think.
Gerry
Comment by
Gerry — 4/15/2006 @ 10:28 pm